I also think this was a deliberate decision by DFT/MCA/Treasury to include Bristow in the new gap contract. Bristow will now have the management, engineering, aircrew and logistics in place to bid for the new SARH contract
This will all be in place in the next 12 months before LONG-SAR bids are completed and announced? I'm not sure how this will give the DfT time to assess the Bristow set-up.
I would agree if GAP-SAR allowed any time for CHC & Bristow to operate at the same time in N/S but the time scale doesn't allow for that. Bristow will obviously be bidding for LONG-SAR regardless of whether they won any or all of the GAP-SAR contract.